Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Create a City: An Urban Planning Exercise

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students explore the effects of population growth in Arizona.  In this history instructional activity, students work in small groups to create a "perfect" city. Activities include examining the Arizona census results then discussing...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Writing A Storybook

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students create a storybook using vocabulary from the topic "urban and rural life". They write about past events in a children's story. They present their story to the class at an author's tea.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Location, Location, Location: Civilization's Ultimate Advantage

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers discover how geographical advantages, locational and regional, ultimately led to western Eurasian societies' disproportionate accounting of world power and innovation. They utilize a workbook which can be downloaded within...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

For Teachers 5th - 6th
Young scholars identify the different stages in the water cycle. For this environmental science lesson, students research about different water pollutants in watershed. They describe ways to purify water.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Creating Community - A Function Of Design

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students discuss the physical and human impacts of community design. They identify traditional neighborhood design elements and evaluate them with features of conventional suburban development.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Growth Of A City

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students define what a city is. They investigate the top 10 - 15 most populated cities. SDescribe factors influencing the location and growth of urban sites. They site examples of cities that have grown with different models of urban...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Writing a Storybook

For Teachers 2nd - 4th
Students explore language arts by creating their own stories in class. In this book making lesson plan, students read the story City Pig in class and create storyboard illustrations in order to analyze the story. Students utilize these...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Homeless in our Community

For Teachers 3rd
Third graders explore homelessness in their local community. In this service project/social studies lessons, children research local areas where homeless people reside, discuss global acceptance and unity, and visit a local food bank.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Pop Into My Community

For Teachers 1st
First graders distinguish cityscapes from seascapes and landscapes and explore the features of a community. Then, they create a pop-up paper city showing foreground, middle ground, and background.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Immigrant Experience In America

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students study immigration, Ellis Island, and tenement life from 1890 to 1924. Each student create an identity of an immigrant and write an essay in the first person. Essays describe what they found when they arrived in New York City.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Reading Multicultural Literature

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students read several fictional pieces which examine issues of urbanization and rural cultures. They discuss how the place a person lives affects the kind of person they become.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Zabbaleen, Cairo's Garbage Workers

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Here is a fascinating human geography study of the Zabbaleen. They are a sub-class of people who work as garbage collectors in Cairo, Egypt. I can't say enough good things about this resource in my limited space here. It is fabulous! If...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Investigating comparative biodiversity of wetland and schoolyard sites

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders participate in an activity dealing with the environment.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

From These Beginnings

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students prepare a bulletin board that shows the changing identity of their state before and after statehood.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Words and Pictures Connect Nature and People: The American Conservation Movement

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Young scholars research some of the men and women who help to raise the environmental consciousness of the American people through their writings and drawings. They write a persuasive piece about an outdoor place which will connect...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Improvisational Setting - "Where are You?"

For Teachers 2nd
Second graders explore setting through improvisations.  In this theatre lesson, 2nd graders perform a variety of improvisations in different settings and chart how they established the setting in the different environments. 
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Designing Connections: Bringing Communities Together

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers design a community and write a persuasive essay selling their design. In this community relations instructional activity, students learn about design concepts and use problem solving skills to design structures and events...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Character Building from Inside Out

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students relate the facial muscle location with a person's expressions. In this visual arts lesson plan, students write a fictional story about a character. They use digital cameras and computer softwares to create an animation film...
Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Industrial Revolution

For Teachers 11th - 12th Standards
Could you live without your phone? What about cars, steel, or clothing? Class groups collaborate to produce presentations that argue that either the telephone, the gramophone, the automobile, the textile industry, or the steel...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Social Studies: Canadian City Comparison

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students research Canadian population distribution while comparing and contrasting the quality of life in two cities. They discuss issues and problems that cities and rural towns face. Students apply various methods, such as graphs and...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Conservation in Small Places - Composting

For Teachers 2nd - 5th
A fabulous activity introduces the art of composting to your gardeners. In it, youngsters learn about the composting process and how it actually works. They discuss the environmental benefits of composting, and use the "lasagna" method...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

For Teachers 4th - 5th
Students complete a population pyramid for a city they are studying. They may complete a population pyramid for their city and another one for the country in which the city is located. They compare and contrast the results of the two...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

A New Way of Looking

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students compare and contrast works of art. In this art analysis lesson, students complete art analysis discussion activities and then journal activities.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Critical Consumerism

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students identify the role of advertisements in their environment. In this advertisement lesson, students find advertisements in their classrooms and discuss them. Students write a definition for advertisements and identify related...